The department store chain Beales is to close its last remaining shop, in Poole, for the second time as it blamed rising costs linked to Rachel Reeves’s budget for a failed rescue attempt.
Department stores are expected to come under further pressure from planned changes in business rates under which large stores with a rateable value of more than £500,000 will pay more from April next year.
Tony Brown, the chief executive and majority owner of the revived Beales, said he was closing the final outlet in Poole in May because of the “additional costs being foisted on us”.
Brown said the Poole store, which employs 25 people, could have broken even this year but the additional costs were “the last nail in the coffin”.
Brown said these changes not only directly affected Beales’ own costs but suppliers facing higher labour costs had pushed up prices, too.
